“Parents choose home education for many different reasons so generalisations about them have lots of exceptions. Local authorities also vary widely, only a few of them employing staff who understand how home education achieves its typically good results. Mrs Brookes' fears are well grounded in the experiences of home educators who have been bullied by the many local authorities of the other sort. Some LA staff believe that education can work only if it models the rigid schedule of a classroom. There have been many examples in recent years of LA staff misunderstanding the current law and interfering destructively in home education.

I shall not be surprised if implementation of the Bill results in some or all of the following happening:

1) Lacking accurate information about present home educators, the DCSF has based its costings on optimistic guesses, so Government funding is likely to be inadequate, and LAs will have to cut other services to make up the shortfall;

2) Visiting LA staff will mistake unorthodox parental attitudes for abuse and refer cases to already overloaded Social Services departments, so that genuine abuse of school-attending children will be missed;

3) A child who is being home educated because of bullying at school will be forced back to school by a School Attendance Order from the LA and will subsequently commit suicide.”

“@ Anonomous Tewkesbury resident. You obviously don't know much about home education, why people do it and how it works and also have a very idealised image of school. Many children are withdrawn from school because it has FAILED them. Failed to keep them safe, failed to provide them with anything like a suitable education, and their parents have often fought 'the system' for years before eventually taking the big step of deciding to home educate. Others never send their children because they don't think that the National Curriculum and endless teaching to the test are good things. The 'socialisation' argument is so old and so bogus that it's a real chore having to answer it. Home educated children aren't educated AT HOME all the time, they have friends, usually lots of them, of varying ages (much more like the real world than school) and get to spend a good deal more quality time with them.


@ Sam. Why only dozens? Probably because Home Educators aren't a numerous and aren't a problem for society. They get on with raising their children, being part of the community, but NOT shoving their education choices down everybody else's throats. They are not getting a lot of support from school using families because unfortunately they haven't yet realised that what the government is trying to do to home educators is in fact an attack on ALL PARENTS. You see, every parent is legally responsible for making sure that their child receives a suitable education. Not the state. Not the Local Authority. Not the school. It is the duty of parents to decide how they will do this, be it by sending the child to a state school, a fee paying school or by taking a more direct role and choosing elective home education. The Bill currently going through parliament will change all that. It will be a local authority officer who decides.

And that's not the worst of it. Part of the excuse (think WMD) that the government is trying to use is the unsubstantiated claim that home educated children might be at risk of abuse purely because they don't go to school. Mark my words, it'll be the under 5s next. If you don't use a state approved nursery you'll be getting regular compulsory home visits to make sure you're not abusing your child. Not because there is any cause for concern, just because ALL parents are not to be trusted with their own children. This is the point society has got to, how poisonous the 'child protection' agenda has become. It's not just every stranger who must be viewed as a potential pedophile, now every single parent is a potential abuser until they've been checked and vetted by the state!

Finally Sam, it is indeed unfounded fears that are the problem, the unfounded fears of non-home educators that home educated children are missing out on something, or will have poor social and academic outcomes. The fear of anyone daring to be just a little bit different, not following the herd. Meanwhile, if you look at knife crime, drug taking, gangs and the whole hoodie, ASBO culture where were those young people educated? Why are the government planning on spending £1,000 per child, per year to monitor a group which is by all measures not a problem to anyone when the state school system is in such a mess? Is it a diversionary tactic, a foot in the front door of every family, or simply part of a pathological obsession with control?”

“State Education has never been and will never be as good as Private Education.
I'm minded of the Song "Brick in the Wall".”

“I'm inclined to support the home educators precisely because there's only a small number of them.

I can't recall the small band of home-educators (or their home-educated) ever having been blamed for the problems of this nation. OK, it might turn out to be the wrong decision for some the children involved, but that's also the case in formal education.

One-size-fits-nearly-all will do for me, as long as the minority aren't causing a disproportionately negative impact on the rest.”

“Schooling is about so much more than passing exams, it's about learning to deal with people you don't like, forming friendships etc. Wrapping kids up in cotton wool and then expecting them to cope when they have to go in to higher or further education seems a bit strange to me. I wonder why home schooling parents feel the need to have such absolute control over their children and whether it does them any good in the long run.”

“I think the telling sentence in this whole article is this.
"DOZENS of other Gloucestershire parents who support home education.."
You have to ask yourself why is it only "Dozens", not hundreds, not thousands?? Because the vast, vast majority of parents believe that entering their child into a school with other children will give them the necessary life skills to carry live as a member of a greater society of people. That life and social skilss are as important as a formal education.

If parents have had problems with finding the right school for their child, maybe because of bullying issues, then it is a fight worth fighting with the local education authoritys, and it must not be given up.

Just a small point to add... in my experience, the parents that I have known that have home-schooled their children, have had themselves a very bad time at school as youngsters. Without trying to be imflammatory, their bad experiences often have a knock-on effect for their own children.

I also worry about the quality of teaching in these enviroments.
Mrs Brookes fears are unfounded, so why presume that a problem will occur in the future? Maybe this is the root of the problem...unfounded fears being let to dictate a childs education experience.”